Chuck Kressbach of Monroe said he had to pay almost $300 to replace his windshield, which was chipped Aug. 19. Stones kicked up by a truck going the opposite way caused the damage, he said.

“It just sprayed my car with stones,” he said. “It seems to me there was a lot more stone than necessary.”

Blair Dyer, the road commission s director of maintenance, said Raisinville Road was resurfaced with a computer-controlled mixture of tar and slag - crushed stone that s a byproduct of steel production - used on similar county roads.

He said the road commission resurfaces about 70 miles of road a year using the same process and usually receives complaints about damaged cars.

“I get calls every time they do that,” Mr. Dyer said. “The reason they do that is it preserves the road.”

In a Sept. 5 letter to Monroe resident Carolyn Hall, a Cambridge official said Michigan law bars the insurer from paying her for her chipped windshield. Ms. Hall said her car was damaged by a stone kicked up by a road commission truck on Aug. 19.

“Governmental entities, such as the Road Commission, are immune from tort liability when they are engaged in their governmental function, which includes roadway maintenance,” Paul G. Aubin, a Cambridge claims investigator, wrote.

Mr. Duffey acknowledged that the road commission repaired some of its own trucks that were damaged by stones, plus four Monroe County sheriff s cars.

“We didn t spend any money,” he said. “We repaired those in-house.”

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